Programming Riverside County EDACS into a PRO-96

[jwalton911]

Pro-96 and trunking system

Hello all,

To some, this might be a VERY basic question but I need it answered and I obviously do not know the answer (or understand how to do it after reading the manual).

I have a PRO-96 and a registered copy of Win96 as well as a subscription to RR.

I want to monitor the Riverside County Sheriff's Department in Riverside CA. I would like to pick up their entire system (it is an 800 MHZ EDACS trunked system).

When I go to program it by importing the channels and talk groups from RR to Win96, all the confusion begins. Like I said before, I want the entire system. First of all, RR Win96 gives me all kinds of errors about "you are importing 176 talk groups and a scanner bank only holds 150...etc" then another one about "you are importing 10 sites and the LCN must match to the scanners banks, etc..."

Maybe I'm not well versed on how talk groups work and how to program this scanner so I can scan the TGs I want and lock out the rest. I understand the theory about the "control" channel and basic TG stuff but setting this thing up is tough. I also understand about the LCN matching up with the scanner channels... ( a little).

Can anyone help? I don't mind wiping out all the memories on this scanner to set it up the way I have mentioned above. There isn't much in it already as it is a new scanner.

Another funny thing happens ... I programmed the scanner with some of Riverside's channels and when I scan, after every transmission, I hear a "beep beep beep beep" before the channel releases... causing the next transmission to be cut off unless I hit SCAN real quick. Is this some kind of control tone for the system? is there anyway to cut it off?

Thanks for your help!

 

[loumaag]

To: jwalton911 (OT Comments)

Okay I will try and answer some of your basic questions.

First, an EDACS system is a system that must have the channels programmed in the proper logical channel number (LCN) position for every site. That means if each site in the system you are trying to monitor has a channel 1 and each is a different frequency (and the same for each other channel) then each site must be in it's own bank in the Pro96. Looking at the Riverside System, it would appear that you would have to commit the scanner to only monitor this system and no other trunking system (TRS).

The next point is that the scanner is limited to 150 talk groups (TG) per bank so that is a hardware/firmware limit due to the radio.

All of that is not what you want to hear, but it is the reality. Now to work around this, you could skip those TG's that really have no interest to you (such as "Radio Maintenance"). In addition to this it would appear that the TG's are divided up by area and surely you could limit the TG's to those banks you commit to certain areas.

The next recommendation I would make is to query the folks over in the California forum here on the site. I am sure someone else has had this problem in the past and can offer some more "local" advice.

Now, I would also caution you about taking a thread "off topic". I understand that sometimes it seems that the folks in a thread may hold the answers, but really this thread was not the place to ask this question.

Thanks

 

[brandon]

Here is a good Pro-96 data file for Riverside County. You should be able to use this as a start and customize it from there. Good luck.

 

[WayneH]

The next recommendation I would make is to query the folks over in the California forum here on the site. I am sure someone else has had this problem in the past and can offer some more "local" advice.

Split off to the California forum....